Tension over sacrilege of Sikh holy book

Dera Bassi:Tension brewed in the local area over sacrilege incident of the Sikh holy book in Devinagar, falling in Dera Bassi Municipal Council on Sunday morning. 50 pages of Shri Guru Granth Sahib were found half torn while a monument premises, situated near 50 meters away, was also found used for answering the call of nature in the village. Where scores of religious and political leaders rushed on the spot, a huge number of police forces were also deployed in the village to avoid any untoward incident, thereafter. However, police managed to caught the accused within a period of eight hours who is a mentally sick youth of the village.

The incident came to light when a village youth Parneet checked the holy book to shift it in a nearby residence for Sukhmani Sahib path around 7 am. Parneet, immediately reported the incident to Gurdwara prabanthak committee president Prem Singh. The committee found that the culprit tore a total of 50 pages from page no. 497 to 522 and 633 to 658 page number. Meanwhile, villagers found another sacrilege incident in the nearby monument. People started assembling at the spot as soon as repeated announcements were made.

Though no CCTV camera was installed any of the village Gurdwaras and nearby residences, police started investigating about the persons who visited Gurudwara between 5.20 am to 7 pm as Prem Singh had left the Gurudwara after offering prayers.

After the investigations were over, SP(D) Jaskaranjit Singh said the incident was committed by 28 years old Surjit Singh alias Bhola, son of Mahinder Singh, a mentally sick youth of the village around 6 am.

He said Bhola had been arrested after registering a case under section 295 A and 380 of IPC against him. He said that Bhola had been under treatment from past three years. He had often pelted stones at homes of villagers, assaulted his parents and even smashed the window panes of several cars in the village. No body instigated him nor did he commit this crime on behest of anyone, he claimed.